


One Last Shot

by Telaryn



Category: Leverage
Genre: Assassins & Hitmen, Badass, Crossover, Escape, Gen, Kidnapping, Rescue, Revenge, Twins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-25
Updated: 2015-12-25
Packaged: 2018-05-09 08:02:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5531900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Telaryn/pseuds/Telaryn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Damien Moreau escapes Interpol custody, Mykel Dayan is hired to intercept him before he can reach his chosen target.  When she is too late to save Eliot, the terms of her contract demand that she make it right.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Last Shot

**Author's Note:**

  * For [D890MB279](https://archiveofourown.org/users/D890MB279/gifts).



> Every Exchange there's a monster of a prompt - one that demands more than I have time to give. This was so much fun to write, D890 - I hope you enjoy the result!
> 
> Thank you for joining us!

They struck on a Friday. Mid-morning, when the least number of people would be home and likely to care what was going on in the over-sized unit at the end of the hall; they were lying in wait when he returned from the farmer’s market down the block.

There was no reasonable way to tell from the state of what was left behind whether the intent had been to capture or kill – only that the fight had been an epic one. Broken furniture and possessions littered nearly ever surface of his living room, but the smell of gunfire was also heavy in the air. There was blood too, scattered throughout the scene, leading up to an impressive spray of red and black on the far wall, flecked with tiny chips of bone.

Her face remained impassive as she walked the entire apartment, betraying nothing of what she might be feeling. This was a job. It was just a job, and the terms of her contract meant that even though she’d been too late to stop the attack, it still fell to her to set the whole thing to rights.  
*******************************  
Parker was the first to raise the alarm. Tuesdays were the day she and Eliot had agreed on, where she could tail him to her heart’s content, and no matter what he was doing, he wouldn’t try to ditch or stop her.

“We need to call the police,” Sophie said, her voice shaking with emotion. “This is bigger than we can handle on our own.”

Nate agreed with her in every way that mattered, but he still took his time digesting the scene. Once Boston PD was notified, the situation was going to escalate quickly and the people who knew Eliot Spencer best were going to be shut out of whatever legal lines of investigation followed.

“Captain Bonnano’ll keep us in the loop, right?” Hardison asked, almost as if he’d been reading Nate’s mind.

Still focused on the shattered remains of a glass sculpture Eliot had displayed on his coffee table, Nate shook his head. “We can’t count on the captain being allowed to participate in whatever happens. Once the feds are involved, they’re going to pick up his connection to us and that will be that.”

“Feds?” Parker asked, lowering her camera and looking back at them with wide, startled eyes. “Why do we need the feds?” She’d been documenting the scene for them to review as they started their own investigation.

Nate blew out a quiet breath. “I’m not going to discount the involvement of anyone that can figure out what happened here. It’s not going to be a question of needing the feds though – once BPD starts digging into the life of the man who lives here, they’re going to be throwing up all kinds of flags.” His attention was drawn again to the gruesome spray decorating the far wall. “I don’t mind admitting I’m worried about where this is all going to stop.”  
****************************************  
After an hour of hard searching by the best web crawlers her employer could buy, she was convinced of one thing: Eliot Spencer had walked out of the fire-fight at his apartment at least relatively whole. Beyond that, all she had was a string of burning aliases heading to a dozen different points around the globe.

He was scared, and that in and of itself was a sobering thought. Whoever had been behind the attack had struck a weak spot Eliot probably hadn’t even known he had. He was running – he was moving fast and going deep, and if she was any judge of such things, he wasn’t planning on coming back.

 _Los Angeles._ Abruptly she realized that the city was missing from the list of places Eliot’s different alter-egos were supposedly heading. _Los Angeles. Where his twin brother lives._

The fact that Eliot had an identical twin was one of his most closely guarded secrets. She still didn’t know why he’d trusted _her_ with it, but she remembered distinctly lounging in his arms, listening to his rambling explanation for the picture tucked into a back corner of his headboard. “He’s a self-serving son of a bitch, but I can count on Lindsey. He’s helped me out of some of the tightest spots I’ve ever known, and he’s had my back every step of the way.”

If Eliot was running as flat out scared as she suspected, Lindsey McDonald would be his first stop.  
*****************************************  
The good news, Nate supposed, was that the mess of bone shards and brain matter decorating one wall of Eliot’s apartment did _not_ belong to their teammate. “Dimitri Petrakov,” Hardison announced, putting an image up on the bank of monitors. “Wanted in about a dozen countries for your usual run of the mill bad guy stuff.”

“My contacts in Laos and Sri Lanka say that he hires out to whoever offers the most cash,” Sophie told them, “and he’s not picky about what they pay him to do.”

“Some of the blood at the scene was Eliot’s,” Nate added, reading down the report Parker had stolen from the forensics lab for them. “Not enough to suggest that he didn’t leave under his own power. They’ve also got samples from three other people – all known mercenaries, wanted for crimes on the international stage.” He read off the names and Hardison added their pictures to Petrakov’s.

Studying the men, Nate felt his heart grow heavy in his chest. “We need to know who hired them,” he said finally. “There’s no motive here, no weakness we can exploit to figure out where he is.”

“Whoever’s chasing him is big and bad,” Parker said. “Otherwise he would have let us help.”

Nate glanced at her, once again appreciating how quickly the thief grasped the situation. Parker had grown up with no discernible interpersonal skills, but once she had the measure of someone she was nearly perfect in her ability to predict what that person would do. “All right, we’ll head in that direction. Hardison, put together a list of possible targets using Parker’s parameters.”

“On it,” the hacker acknowledged – sliding past remarking on the fact that Parker’s ‘parameters’ were on the vague side.

 _That’s part of what makes us such a good team,_ he thought, scanning the crime scene report again and praying something new and important would leap out at him. _Why didn’t you trust us? We faced down Damien Moreau with you…_

Eyes widening, Nate felt his pulse rate jump. “Hardison,” he said carefully, “get into Interpol’s files. I want to know where Damien Moreau is right this second.”

“Moreau?” Sophie asked, getting to her feet. “Nate, we put him down almost a year ago.”

Meeting her gaze, Nate didn’t try to hide what he was now certain had happened. “The only way to guarantee he would stay down was the choice I wouldn’t allow Eliot to make.” His attention slid to the monitor; Hardison had wiped all the information on the mercenaries, replacing it with everything they knew about Damien Moreau – Eliot’s former master 

He’d been wrong not to allow Eliot to put an end to Moreau once and for all.

It was a mistake he wouldn’t make again.  
**************************************************  
Lindsey McDonald was tougher than she would have expected from a corporate attorney; she could feel actual muscles sliding underneath the jacket of his $5000 suit. He was softer than his brother though, which was really all she needed.

“It was all over before I even knew he was in trouble!” He pushed against her hold, testing her, but it ended in a gasp of real pain as she pushed his arm to the breaking point. “I didn’t have a chance to warn him. I would never sell my brother out!”

Against all logic and reason, she believed him. “Moreau has him then?” A quick, jerky nod was her answer, along with another indistinct sound. Swearing under her breath, she released him and stepped back. “Talk.”

He reminded her of an angry peacock she’d seen at the zoo in Tel-Aviv once, as he tried to settle his clothes and recover what he could of his dignity. “Ford send you?”

She grinned at him, but there was no humor in it. “Nathan Ford did not send me. Talk.”

He was clearly startled to discover that she wasn’t connected to Eliot’s teammates. _Not in any way that matters._ It made him more cautious than he might have been otherwise, but she’d already been very persuasive. “I didn’t know.”

“You’re the first person he’d go to in a situation like this – you’re telling me you had no warning?”

Guilt was heavy in the strangely familiar gaze, but Lindsey McDonald pressed on. “Depending on how bad or imminent the threat, it’s usually safer if I don’t have advance warning. He finds me, and we work it from there.”

From there it was easy to extrapolate what had happened as Lindsey reported it. _Moreau would know all about Eliot’s twin._ As one of Wolfram  & Hart’s most valued clients, Damien Moreau would also have the pull to order a trap set, using Lindsey as bait.

Eliot had walked right into it.  
****************************************************  
Hardison had sent a copy of the security footage from Wolfram & Hart to Nate’s phone. “How many times are you going to torture yourself with that?” Sophie asked gently, drawing his attention from the screen.

He sighed heavily, feeling every bit of the weight of responsibility he’d assumed for these people – his family. “He wouldn’t have had to run if I’d let him kill Moreau when he had the chance.”

Sophie slid up onto the stool next to him. “So you’ve said. Repeatedly. Is that knowledge going to help us get to Eliot any sooner?”

“Of course not.” Nate studied her expression carefully – looking for some hint that she’d been less than forthcoming when she hadn’t argued their decision to try and take Moreau down once and for all. “I’m trying to convince myself that this is the only way; that I haven’t overlooked something else again.”

The skin of her palm was cool and smooth as she slid her hand over to cover his. “I don’t like it Nate – I’m not going to lie. But I think you’re right; Moreau’s never going to stop coming after Eliot as long as he’s alive, and we can’t trust law enforcement to put him down for us.”

“You don’t associate with murderers,” It was more of a statement than a question – echo of an argument they’d had once upon a time when it was his father he was seeking revenge for, and the lines between right and wrong were far more blurred.

Her answering smile was lovely, but grim. “This isn’t murder. This is defense of a third party. You’re doing what needs to be done.”

Nate settled back in his seat, turning his hand to clasp hers. Sophie’s support was reassuring, but the fear he couldn’t admit out loud was that when his moment came – when he had Moreau in his sights – he wouldn’t have it in him to pull the trigger.

Closing his eyes briefly, Nate replayed the moment when Eliot had walked into the path of the enhanced human Wolfram & Hart had set to watch for him. A human with a taser never could have gotten close enough. Whatever this woman was, bolts of raw electricity had arced from her hands to surround Eliot with a field of brilliant light. His collapse to the expensive terrazzo floor had been immediate and absolute, allowing Moreau’s men to move in and take him into custody at their leisure. “You know we’re not going to be able to keep Parker from tailing me,” he said, opening his eyes and meeting her gaze again. “She wants to be the one to take care of Moreau.”

It was the point where Sophie’s support for their planned rescue had ceased. “You’re going to have to make certain you pull the trigger first.”  
*********************************************  
Sheer force of will got him to his feet and drew his battered body to attention. Damien’s lackeys had made it perfectly clear what would happen if he didn’t obey orders, and Eliot wasn’t ready to die.

_Not yet, at any rate._

“My doctor says that you have a concussion.” Damien was standing in the doorway to Eliot’s cell, tanned and perfect in a loose fitting white shirt opened at the collar, and tight black slacks disappearing into stylish black riding boots. “He is…concerned.”

There was no question asked, so Eliot kept his attention fixed on the spot he’d picked out on the wall to Damien’s left and said nothing. As the silence stretched between them, Eliot’s former master finally scowled. “I do not want things to be this way between us! We were friends once, Eliot – closer than friends! Closer than brothers, and you won’t even do me the courtesy of a simple conversation?”

Memory of electricity enveloping his awareness, lighting up his nervous system like the proverbial Christmas tree, sent a shiver across his skin, but otherwise Eliot remained motionless and silent. It was a calculated risk that Damien wouldn’t lose his temper and deliver him a crippling or fatal blow – but faced with the possibility of reestablishing old connections and being drawn back into Damien’s web, it was an acceptable one.

 _They’re going to be looking for you._ The abuse he’d endured, topped by the concussion, had fucked with his time sense, but Eliot was reasonably certain enough time had passed that Hardison would be scouring the planet looking for evidence of what had happened and where he’d been taken.

“I offered you the opportunity once,” Damien said, “to keep your family safe against all threats. You responded by turning on me, by threatening to kill me, and then letting the fools at Interpol have me.” He suddenly turned all his attention on Eliot; the hitter felt the skin on the back of his neck tighten in response. “You wouldn’t believe me if I made you the same offer again, but perhaps you will believe this.” He took a step closer to Eliot – edging into his field of vision. “If they come after me, I will take Hardison and your little blond thief for my own. Annie Kroy, or Sophie Devereaux, or whatever she calls herself – I will break her to my will and my bed.”

Rage surged through Eliot as Damien’s poison dripped into the space between them. “Finally, I will put Nathan Ford on his knees and make you watch as I…”

He never finished his threat. Pushed beyond all reason, Eliot turned and launched himself at his former master. Pain exploded in his skull a moment later, as a steel rod Damien had been holding against his thigh cracked across Eliot’s face. Blood exploded from his cheek as he collapsed to his hands and knees, coughing and retching on the floor.

“I don’t want to do things this way,” Damien said, crouching over Eliot. “When you are in your right mind again, you will see reason.”

Eliot sensed him pushing to his feet, but he didn’t have the strength to raise his head. “I will send somebody to attend you.”  
******************************************  
“Get the damned doctor!”

His hands and shirt were stained with blood, and the frustration in his voice promised pain for the next person to cross him. She kept her expression neutral and impassive, her outward focus entirely on the shelf she was dusting. _You’re running out of time._ Moreau was near his breaking point – either he was going to snap and kill Eliot outright, or a well-intentioned but desperately outmanned and outgunned rescue party was going to show up and make things exponentially more difficult.

It was only when she was grabbed and spun into Moreau’s line of sight that she realized the man himself had called out to her. “Get water, towels, clean up the mess in there,” he snapped, as she struggled with instincts demanding she snap his neck now and have done.

The terms of her contract were very clear. All of this was going to be for nothing, if Eliot was too injured for an easy extraction. Nodding her understanding, she dipped a small curtsy and prayed he would read the adrenaline choking her system as fear instead of rage. “You will stay and help the doctor with whatever he needs.”

Another curtsy – she didn’t trust herself to speak. _So close…_

Damien Moreau held her gaze for a moment longer, before releasing her and striding from the room – his closest advisors at his heels. Willing her racing heart to slow, she picked up her bucket of cleaning supplies and walked calmly and easily towards her goal.

The room where Eliot was being held was darker than she’d expected; a play of shadows showing her nothing of the interior, or the man who was slowly dying by inches somewhere inside. Closing the door quietly behind her, she groped for the switch that had to be on the adjacent wall.

A rough hand grabbed her wrist, twisting to maneuver her into a familiar hold, but this time she let herself react. Step by step she executed the counter-move, taking only enough pity on him to cushion his tumble to the floor as best she could.

Dropping to a crouch, she pressed a hand to the middle of his chest – trying to ignore how harsh and labored his breathing was in the sudden stillness. “Do not fight me Spencer,” she hissed. “It’s Mykel. I’m here to bring you home.”  
**************************************  
Consumed by his rage at Eliot’s stubborn refusal to be brought to heel, Moreau had left the cell without restoring the irons that had secured his hands and feet. On some level he must have thought Eliot too injured to offer more than a token resistance, but that spark deep inside the hitter’s soul that was keeping him from giving up had seized on it as a chance; perhaps the only one he would have to escape.

Realizing that it was a woman who had entered his prison was a momentary flash of disappointment. If it wasn’t Damien’s wife or daughter, any woman in the compound would have little to offer as a hostage.

Hearing a familiar voice, realizing that it was _Mykel_ who had penetrated so deeply into Damien’s stronghold…well…

Eliot couldn’t remember the last time he’d cried from sheer relief, but if another wave of nausea hadn’t caught him just then he knew he would have dissolved into a sobbing mess. Mykel steadied him until the worst of the vomiting had passed and all he tasted was bile. “Water?” he croaked, hope flaring brightly in his mind as he asked the question.

She shifted, and then a familiar plastic shape brushed against his hands. “Not too much,” she cautioned, letting him feel her remove the top and work it into his grip.

He used the first taste to rinse his mouth – spitting the last of the foulness from his tongue onto the floor. That done, he took a mouthful, held it until he was certain it was warm enough for his stomach to stand, then swallowed it.

“What’s the plan?” he whispered, relieved to hear his voice sounding closer to normal. He fumbled the water bottle back into her hand, knowing that even as dehydrated as he was, any more water in his current state was likely to set off another round of vomiting.

“Depends,” she said, and even as pitch black as it was, Eliot imagined she was grinning. “Can you move?”

“How far?” he asked, fighting back the urge to claim he was in better shape than he really was. They had one shot at this; him trying to play the hero at this point was only going to get them both killed.

“Two levels down, then out,” she said. “If I’ve understood your mastermind correctly….”

She was cut off by a flood of light into the room as the door opened. Reacting on pure instinct, Eliot through himself back into the shadows – trusting that Mykel would be able to handle whoever of Damien’s minions had come.

Miraculously he’d managed to gain his footing by the time she’d dispatched the doctor and his escort, although the effort had set his head spinning once more. “Hurry!” she called, turning and reaching for him as the guard’s body collapsed to the floor.

Eliot gestured her on, falling automatically into step behind her. _One chance._ He wasn’t ready to die, and he certainly wasn’t ready to die here. Not in Damien’s power, and certainly not by his hand or the hand of anyone in these walls.

 _Except…_ “If we don’t make it,” he managed as two of Moreau’s men closed with them. Mykel took on the first one – her moves just as fluid and professional as he remembered. The second slid past her, heading for Eliot, who swung without thinking about the consequences. His fist connected squarely with the man’s jaw, knocking him back a full step – his eyes wide with surprise. He recovered quickly though, and in the end Mykel had to dispatch him.

“We’re going to make it, she said sharply, and looking into her dark eyes Eliot believed her.

They met more knots of guards – never more than five or fewer than two, but with each encounter Eliot found himself regaining his confidence and determination. He even managed to take down an assailant of his own as they crossed the last remaining distance separating them from the outside, and presumably freedom.

The sun beat into his brain as the two of them gained the exterior of the estate, but Eliot kept pushing on, seeing a dot in the sky growing larger with each step he took. “Is that them?” he asked, calling out to Mykel.”

She shaded her eyes, looking up into the sky, then nodded at him. The wind was starting to whip her long hair about, and briefly Eliot flashed on a memory of the two of them in bed together; those long, silken strands playing across his skin…

They were going to get out of here. He was going to live and heal, and then he was going to come back and put a bullet right between Damien Moreau’s eyes.  
********************************  
Nate’s revolver was a comforting weight in his hand as he made his way through the chaos of Damien Moreau’s stronghold. He hadn’t expected any of this, but as more and more people ran past him – ignoring his very existence – he couldn’t help hoping that Eliot was somehow responsible.

 _He cares about him._ It was the only thing Nate had to cling to in the face of what Moreau had ordered done to take Eliot in the first place. In defiance of all logic and reason it was his reason for believing Eliot was still alive.

 _”Top of the next staircase, Nate,”_ Hardison said, his voice a calm undercurrent to the noise swirling around him. _”First door on the left.”_

“Are you sure Moreau is in there?” Nate asked, stepping out of the path of two charging men in matching $5000 suits. “I’m only going to get one shot at this.”

 _”Infra-red doesn’t lie,”_ Hardison countered.

Nate rolled his eyes. “It also doesn’t tell you who the person is.”

 _”It does when the person is sitting at Moreau’s desk.”_ Nate could almost hear his hacker’s smirk.

“Okay, point made.” Nate rounded the last corner before the stairwell and drew up short as his way was barred by someone clearly _not_ ignoring his existence. “Mykel.”

Hardison’s voice in his ear devolved into a babble of excited static, until Nate finally pulled the comm and slid it into his pocket. “You need to go,” the Israeli mercenary said. “Eliot needs you.”

“How is he?” The question tumbled out before Nate was able to decide he was willing to ask it.

Mykel glared at him impatiently. “Interpol is closing in on this location even now. If you delay, your helicopter will not be able to take off.”

Nate raised his gun and showed it to her. “I’m not leaving here while Moreau is alive. Interpol had their chance. He dies today.”

The woman facing him nodded. “Yes – he does. And he will. On this you may absolutely depend.”

Realization lit in Nate’s mind. “You’re already being paid. But by who?”

Mykel was silent for a moment. In the distance Nate heard the sound of gunfire starting on the lower levels of the house. “Damien Moreau dies today,” she said finally. “If you need more to remind you of what your real priorities are, I am instructed to tell you that he dies at my hand not because it is legal, but because it is just.”


End file.
